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Dance Party and Light Show With 3,000 Balloons Coming to Crown Heights

 Mister Rogers in Crown Heights will host a dance party in a balloon-filled room on Saturday.
Mister Rogers in Crown Heights will host a dance party in a balloon-filled room on Saturday.
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Sam Novey

CROWN HEIGHTS — This should be a gas. 

Two DJs, 3,000 balloons lit by LED lights and a host of vendors, spoken word artists and musicians will turn a Crown Heights gallery space into a daylong party this weekend.

On Saturday, organizers will fill an entire room with multi-colored balloons at Mister Rogers on Rogers Avenue between Union and President streets for an event they’re calling “Balloonacy.”

“We ordered 3,000 balloons, which are currently under my bed,” said Sam Novey, 26, a tech start-up worker who, along with a group of friends, is hosting the event for the second time. “Thousands of people” showed up to the first Balloonacy held in San Francisco in 2012, he said. A video of the event shows people dancing to electronic music amidst the multi-colored balloons, which give off the only light in the dark room.

Since that first Balloonacy, Novey’s been looking for the perfect spot to revive the party.

“There’s a really, really great group of people [at Mister Rogers] who are always excited to have fun events, particularly for the community, in their space,” he said.

The balloons, he said, will all be white with a different colored LED light inside each, which Novey and a group of volunteers will assemble, blow up and tie on Friday night before the event. Originally, he ordered only 2,000 balloons, but got another thousand to make sure the room is filled.

“We wanted to make extra sure that it was total Balloonacy,” said Jack Cashion, 23, a friend of Novey and one of the event’s organizers.

But the night isn’t just about inflatables. Before the dancing gets started, the space will host the “Bizarre Bazaar,” a vendor market and exhibit with a “range of visual stimuli” starting in the afternoon, according to the event’s Facebook page. Artists and sellers will include Brooklyn clothiers Mamazoo and Inshadycompany, visual artist Natalie Bessell and comedian Joel Kim Booster.

Both the Bizarre Bazaar and Balloonacy are free to get in, though Novey says they’ll “pass the hat” among attendees to gather donations for the Roger That Community Garden, a local garden plot whose gardeners have been fighting a developer who bought the land they use.

The Bizarre Bazaar will start at 2 p.m. at 231 Rogers Ave. on Saturday, July 19. Balloonacy will take place between 6 and 10 p.m.